The Drowned Sailor Read online

angrily he would manage well enough without her, took up his lover and kissed her firmly. That pleased Clare well enough, and dispelled all her doubts and pre-nuptial anxieties for the moment in one embrace. Meanwhile Ravella smiled and slipped away.

  This was the curious opening scene just prior to my arrival. James Trevick was an old acquaintance of mine, and had been kind enough (or felt obliged enough) to invite me to his wedding, so I came down late in the day to stop overnight for the next morning’s ceremony. I drove through the rain, and it looked very grim still as I came to the coast, dark early with low heavy clouds; I concluded we must have further showers by evening, though presently it held off.

  Trevick’s house stands at a little distance from the village, Hurlevor, which sits in a small cove and feigns a living from fishing, for appearances’ sake, while ice creams, holiday lets and water sports supply the deficit. As I came through the village past the quay I saw that the guesthouse fronting it had no vacancies, and out of season it must be because of my friend’s wedding party; in fact I saw one of them moping about in the shingle under the trees, a mawkish looking fellow.

  But that is by the bye; I headed up and further along the headland towards the house. Hurlevor Point is situated on a short ridge overlooking the water and the rocks standing out at intervals into the Atlantic. There is no steep cliff, and the chimneys rise fairly on the brink where the land crumbles into the ocean. This is an exposed location, you may be sure, to the ravages of gale and salt; but it was not always so, it seems. I have been told there was once a garden and a meadow between the house and the shore, where now lie only rubble and straggling seaweed, nobody supposing at the time of building that so much ground should ever be lost. This was a silly miscalculation, however, for it is well known that on clear days, when the tide is out, the foundations of an even earlier house can be discerned on the seabed, at a little distance offshore, which ought to have served as a guide to the ocean’s acquisitive influence.

  I drove up as Ravella stepped through the front door, casting a wary eye at the weather. I was surprised to see her there, since I knew her connection with Trevick, but I was glad nevertheless to find a familiar face, and especially one who might be amusing— weddings can be numbingly dull without good company. We met very cheerily, and she told me that she had come out to escape love’s young dream.

  ‘Oh, are they very happy, then?’ I asked her.

  She looked at me rather wryly and replied: ‘Do you know them? Well, I suppose it’s happy after their own fashion.’

  ‘I did wonder how their tempers would match together,’ I said, ‘but since they’re to tie the knot tomorrow, we must suppose it’s love.’

  ‘That kind of love is like sparks from a grindstone,’ she replied, ‘all fire and noise.’

  ‘They certainly will be a lively couple,’ I suggested.

  She suggested in turn that lively was not the word, and laughed brightly. ‘Of course I hope they’ll be happy,’ she continued, ‘but I can’t help feeling that people like James and Clare should have no business falling in love with each other in the first place. They’re both too apt to take to extremes: she will lament, he will despair, oh, it’s the end of the world every other half-hour, and sweet as syrup in between. Still, it all goes under the name of “love” and makes fine comedy for the rest of us.’

  ‘But Ravella,’ I said, as we ambled, arm-in-arm, around the house wall to look at the seashore, ‘you were married yourself once, I think? Were you any different before your wedding day?’

  ‘Me!’ she cried. ‘We bickered at the altar! When the vicar asked after any impediment, we were told to take turns.’

  ‘Yes, but you were just as much in love, all the same?’

  ‘We were,’ she said, and gazed sadly over the sea.

  ‘I’m a little surprised to meet you here, actually. You and James— do not always see eye to eye.’

  She laughed. ‘You mean he hates the sight of me! We see eye to eye alright, but only so we may scratch each other’s out!’

  I said it was a shame he could not be more friendly towards his fiancée’s friend, but she tutted.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, I don’t mind it. I suppose he has his reasons for disliking me, and I would rather be resented than warrant no opinion at all.’

  ‘But don’t you resent it yourself?’

  ‘What? James’s disfavour? Why should I care about that? It’s all a joke as far as I’m concerned. Bearing his mysterious grudge must do him more hurt than me.’

  I conjectured aloud that Trevick might have something of a morose temper, or he would voice his dispute openly, and make towards sorting it out.

  ‘I suppose so,’ she answered, and seemed to muse a while on some amusing idea, before adding lightly: ‘It’s no use hating anyone, unless you can do them some real harm.’

  The grey sea grinding moodily against the pebbles made for a dreary view, and now the first spots of rain began to dot the stonework on the front of the house, so I decided that I had delayed too long in announcing my arrival.

  ‘We’d better go in before it comes on any heavier,’ I said, and she asked me the time, which, when I told it, quickened her pace.

  ‘I can’t dawdle,’ she said, ‘I must get back.’

  ‘Back? Oh, so you aren’t staying up here at the Point tonight?’

  ‘Goodness, no!’ she exclaimed in mock-horror. ‘Do you think James Trevick would suffer me under his roof? I’m staying at the guesthouse in Hurlevor, and so, for this unlucky night, is Clare.’

  We scampered under the porch and went inside.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said, ‘do you suppose he’ll suffer me under his roof then? Between ourselves, I’m anxious not to put James to any trouble. He’s such an intimidating person sometimes. But I’m afraid Hurlevor is full up tonight.’

  ‘You’re under his roof now, and it hasn’t caused any trouble so far.’ —with which we sought out the happy couple, to assay my host.

  First, however, we came upon Clare, who immediately began her grievances with an ‘Oh Ravella!’ and a forlorn look, which was very becoming to her.

  Ravella returned: ‘Well well, are you still at war?’

  ‘I’m not,’ she replied. ‘I have made up my mind to forgive and forget the quarrel —oh, hello there,’ (this to me, with a nod) ‘—I don’t want to be arguing today, of all days. But now he won’t let me kiss him or hang about him, and says I’ve pestered him into a bad mood. And for all my efforts I can’t pester him out of it again!’

  Ravella glanced sideways at me. ‘But you were the best of friends when I left you, Clare.’

  She sighed in answer, and said: ‘Yes, but he’s turned again.’

  ‘I didn’t think Trevick’s moods were so inconstant,’ I ventured.

  ‘Oh, as to that,’ said Ravella, ‘he is constant: constantly changeable.’

  ‘But Ravella,’ said Clare, ‘what shall I do about him?’

  Ravella spread her hands wide and shrugged. ‘It seems to me he has a lifetime of “pestering” to look forward to, and you a lifetime of irritability.’

  Clare bit her lip. ‘Do you think he has real misgivings about the wedding? I’ve been as sweet and kind to him as I can be.’

  ‘There you are then. Of course he’s uncertain what to think, if you’re kind. He’s grown used to the reverse.’

  ‘Oh, don’t make a joke out of it!’ protested the bride-to-be. ‘I wish I knew that he loves me.’ She fell to nervously tearing up an old theatre ticket into smaller and smaller pieces.

  Ravella snatched away her work and scattered the fragments. ‘You should have made sure of that before you decided to marry him, Clare. But I’m sure love isn’t at issue here. James has a closed character, and yours is open, so you don’t understand him, that’s all.’

  ‘Do you understand him, Ravella?’ she asked plaintively.

  ‘It’s not my business to understand anybody,’ was the reply. ‘But I suspect that what he hides is hidd
en by habit, not secrecy. When he’s in his reveries, and won’t have you kiss him once, kiss him twice. And when he tells you to leave that out, tell him he must kiss you back if you’re to stop. He’ll tell you to give up your nonsense, and you can say that you will, if he’ll give up his— and by these means you’ll teach him that it’s easier to keep his mysteries to himself, and not indulge them when you’re around.’

  ‘One of us will be driven mad!’

  ‘Then make sure it’s him.’

  I noted Ravella’s knack of talking off her friend’s qualms without supplying anything substantial in their place. Just then, though, Trevick came in, I suppose unaware of Ravella and myself, for he seemed about to form some reconciliatory words when he discovered us. He greeted me with a kind of careless courtesy, but to Ravella he was curt and said directly: ‘Put that Ravella out—.’ as soon as he saw her.

  This turned his fiancée upon him, however, and she berated him for being so discourteous. ‘I hoped you’d calmed down, but I see you’re determined to be unpleasant,’ she concluded.

  ‘I always try to be pleasant to my friends,’ he said, offering me a chair and something to drink, which I was pleased to take.

  ‘And my friends mean nothing!’ cried she, intercepting my refreshment. ‘I wouldn’t dream of being so rude to somebody you care about!’

  ‘Ravella doesn’t feel anything,’ he muttered.

  I concluded that they were not about to interrupt an argument for the sake of mere company.